Using Oyster at Gatwick

bubieyehyeh · 1 Oct 2019

I was somewhat surprized when my oyster card picked up an online top-up when I entered gatwick station. Does anyone know if auto-top now works at Gatwick?

RailUK Forums

Hadders · 1 Oct 2019

bubieyehyeh said:
I was somewhat surprized when my oyster card picked up an online top-up when I entered gatwick station. Does anyone know if auto-top now works at Gatwick?

Why wouldn't it work at Gatwick if you've got auto top-up set up?

bubieyehyeh · 1 Oct 2019

I did a search and found this posts from 2016, It wasn't clear that auto-top up would work at gatwick if payg balance was below £10.
There seem to be a case where the entry balance needed to open gates is above the limit where auto-top should work.

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/oyster-to-gatwick.121550/page-10#post-2618471

Also on Mike's excellent website https://www.oyster-rail.org.uk/2016/08/gatwick-truth-updated/

Surreytraveller · 1 Oct 2019

Auto top up works everywhere, even on buses

bubieyehyeh · 1 Oct 2019

Surreytraveller said:
Auto top up works everywhere, even on buses

I knew about buses, but wasn't sure about "outside london".

Auto-top was setup and forget, but now I'm travelling from Gatwick more, I wasn't to be sure that is still the case, and wanted to check I didn't need to keep an eye on balance to avoid being caught with a balance between the required entry balance and auto-top trigger point.

Belperpete · 1 Oct 2019

bubieyehyeh said:
I did a search and found this posts from 2016, It wasn't clear that auto-top up would work at gatwick if payg balance was below £10.
There seem to be a case where the entry balance needed to open gates is above the limit where auto-top should work.
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/oyster-to-gatwick.121550/page-10#post-2618471

Also on Mike's excellent website https://www.oyster-rail.org.uk/2016/08/gatwick-truth-updated/

For some reason, your reference to Mike's web-site doesn't appear when I look at your message - it only appeared when I pressed reply. The bit on Mike's web-site that you are referring to is:
Auto topup won’t work if you have between £10 and the entry threshold at either Gatwick Airport or the Express gateline (p13/14) at Victoria. The gate will refuse entry citing insufficient funds.
At the time that was posted (2016) the entry threshold was £14. As the premium fare to or from Gatwick is now £17, the threshold may have gone up to match.

I have used Oyster to or from Gatwick many times in the past, and never encountered this problem. I may just have been lucky, but I suspect this problem has been sorted (or there would surely be a lot more complaints!). However, from where I live now, rather than buy a ticket to Euston and use Oyster to cross London and get to Gatwick, it is much cheaper to buy a through fare to Gatwick. This allows me travel on the GatEx for no extra charge, and avoids being landed with the Oyster afternoon rush-hour fare if I happen to travel at the wrong time. I just have to remember NOT to use the Oystercard by mistake!

MikeWh · 1 Oct 2019

Belperpete said:
For some reason, your reference to Mike's web-site doesn't appear when I look at your message - it only appeared when I pressed reply.

It works for me, what did you actually get? (ie did you land on my site with an error?)

Belperpete said:
At the time that was posted (2016) the entry threshold was £14. As the premium fare to or from Gatwick is now £17, the threshold may have gone up to match.

The entry threshold matches the single fare to Victoria NR which is £15.10 peak and £8.30 off-peak.

Belperpete said:
I may just have been lucky, but I suspect this problem has been sorted (or there would surely be a lot more complaints!).

Call me cynical but I doubt it has been fixed. I may try it again at some point to find out.

Belperpete said:
and avoids being landed with the Oyster afternoon rush-hour fare if I happen to travel at the wrong time.

If your afternoon peak fare ends anywhere in zone 1 it will be charged as off-peak (although you'll need the peak fare in funds to enter Gatwick).

To re-iterate the answer to the thread, auto topup works everywhere when the balance is less than £10 at the start of a journey.

Belperpete · 1 Oct 2019

MikeWh said:
It works for me, what did you actually get? (ie did you land on my site with an error?)

The whole of the last line referencing your site didn't appear at all. It does now. Probably some formatting glitch on this site.

MikeWh said:
The entry threshold matches the single fare to Victoria NR which is £15.10 peak and £8.30 off-peak.

Sorry, I was thinking of the fare to/from zone 1, which is £17.10. I would have thought that the threshold for the GatEx gates would be set at the GatEX fare, which is £19.80 peak.

MikeWh said:
If your afternoon peak fare ends anywhere in zone 1 it will be charged as off-peak (although you'll need the peak fare in funds to enter Gatwick).

Thanks for that - good to know. It is not exactly obvious when the peak fare applies on the TFL fare finder page.

I must admit I was horrified when I saw the Oyster fares to and from Gatwick. It cost me a mere £4.50 extra for a return ticket to Gatwick as opposed to Euston. If I had bought a ticket to Euston and then used Oyster to get to Gatwick and back I would have paid an extra £17.50 out plus £7.05 return. So I saved £20 by buying a through ticket, rather than using Oyster. Actually, I saved even more, as I travelled by GatEx on the way out, which was covered by my through ticket, but would have cost even more using Oyster.

MikeWh · 1 Oct 2019

Belperpete said:
Sorry, I was thinking of the fare to/from zone 1, which is £17.50. I would have thought that the threshold for the GatEx gates would be set at the GatEX fare, which is £19.80 peak.

The gates at Gatwick are for all services and they don't assume you'll take the express, hence the lower threshold. The threshold at Vic 13/14 is the £19.80 all-day express fare.

Belperpete said:
Thanks for that - good to know. It is not exactly obvious when the peak fare applies on the TFL fare finder page.

Are you looking the right way round? If you search for Gatwick to Victoria then it says peak is only 0630-0930.

Belperpete · 1 Oct 2019

MikeWh said:
The gates at Gatwick are for all services and they don't assume you'll take the express, hence the lower threshold. The threshold at Vic 13/14 is the £19.80 all-day express fare.

The quote from your web-site was about the thresholds at both Gatwick and Victoria. I hadn't realised that you were subsequently only talking about the Gatwick threshold.

MikeWh said:
Are you looking the right way round? If you search for Gatwick to Victoria then it says peak is only 0630-0930.

Agreed, but what does that time refer to? If you start at Gatwick at say 0600, and exit at Victoria at 0700, does that count as peak? If you start at Gatwick at 0900 and exit at Victoria at 1000, does that count as peak? The fare finder seems to be silent on whether the whole journey has to be outside peak hours, only the start of the journey, or what?

MikeWh · 1 Oct 2019

Belperpete said:
The quote from your web-site was about the thresholds at both Gatwick and Victoria. I hadn't realised that you were subsequently only talking about the Gatwick threshold.

The quote on my website was referring to the balance being between £10 and the entry threshold. It didn't assume that the thresholds were the same. Indeed at Gatwick it is only a problem in the two peak periods as the off-peak threshold is below £10.

Belperpete said:
Agreed, but what does that time refer to? If you start at Gatwick at say 0600, and exit at Victoria at 0700, does that count as peak? If you start at Gatwick at 0900 and exit at Victoria at 1000, does that count as peak? The fare finder seems to be silent on whether the whole journey has to be outside peak hours, only the start of the journey, or what?

The time refers to the touch-in time at the start of the journey, a fact that I make clearer on my version of the fare finder at https://oysterfares.com/off.

bubieyehyeh · 2 Oct 2019

Thank you Mike, My travel from gatwick is generally off-peak, so its unlikely to find out if they have fixed the £10-entry gap issue.
So looks like I haven't anything to worry about for now, unless in future the off-peak gatwick entry theshold increases above the auto-top threshold.

Can anyone confirm you can top-up your oyster card at ticket machines at gatwick.

TFN · 2 Oct 2019

bubieyehyeh said:
Can anyone confirm you can top-up your oyster card at ticket machines at gatwick.

Yes TVMs at Gatwick are Oyster enabled for top-up and season tickets

bubieyehyeh · 2 Oct 2019

Many thanks all.

Using Oyster at Gatwick

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